Every so often, Richie Whitt, the sports columnist at the Dallas Observer and 105.3 The Fan radio personality, gives us another opportunity to wonder how he manages to draw two paychecks for spewing ignorant, sexist and only occasionally sports-related drivel for his dedicated legions of trolls.

Actually, I think I just answered my own question. Anyway.

Whitt drew heat earlier this year for suggesting Texas Rangers pitcher Colby Lewis was a weenie-pant lady-man for taking parental leave because omg, how gay is it to have a wife and kids y’all?! Now, he’s reminding us that even though it is (ostensibly) his job to write about sports, the sports columnist doesn’t actually care about watching women’s sports because men “run faster, jump higher or hit the ball longer.” Unless of course the women athletes are hot, because again, hotness is the measure by which even the most talented and highest-achieving women are evaluated in a patriarchal society.

“You know what I think of women’s sports. Why watch them when you can see men run faster, jump higher or hit the ball longer?”

— Well, for starters, because you are a sports columnist, not a men’s sports columnist. Second, because most women find it awesome when dudes don’t discredit the female gender just because women don’t sprint to the finish as fast as men. And you can take that any number of ways, good sir!

Hey-o! I’m here all week!

Literally, like, the entire week, every week. High-fives.

GO USA!

But whatever, Whitt, keep watching only dude sports. I, for one, am not sure proudly and willfully ignorant people deserve to experience this kind of joy, anyway:

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About andrea grimes

Andrea is a journalist living in Austin, TX. She has a master's degree in anthropology and did her thesis work on gender and stand-up comedy. Seriously. Also, she has a bunch of cats. Three of them. Is three a bunch? Discuss.

I’m a male and while I completely respect women on all levels and largely disagree with this guy, whoever he is (I don’t live in or near Dallas), I do have to say that I don’t enjoy women’s sports either. Sports is about entertainment, about seeing the human body used to do things that the average person can’t do. While women’s sports can be exciting occasionally, on the whole most men think to themselves “Well, I can do that, so what’s so special about it?” This would likely be especially true if a man had previously participated in some sport in his life.

I believe that’s why there isn’t as much interest in baseball as previously. During the steroid era, we saw everything we wanted to see – records being broken, guys pushing the envelope. But for the most part, baseball is the same boring sport it has always been. The only thing that keeps people interested in baseball now is nostalgia, and a connection with certain players.

Women’s sports need to have that same value – nostalgia, or a connection with certain players – in order to stay interesting. That’s why women enjoy it while men don’t – women are connecting with the fact that these are other women being athletic. Men won’t connect on that same level until they either see something amazing that they haven’t seen before (rare, because the truth is that men are generally more athletic), or until they have a reason to care about the players (Go USA!). Beyond that, the only way a guy is going to connect is if he’s attracted to one or more of the players, and even that isn’t enough to make a guy consistently watch.

This dude might be a chauvinist, and he clearly looks and sounds like a complete d-bag. But unless you can get men to connect with the players or the team on some level, female sports will never be well-liked among men.

Here’s the deal: I don’t buy the idea that men are too stupid/lame/emotionless/lazy/whatever to be asked to identify with HALF THE HUMAN RACE. For example, there was a lot of hand-wringing pre-Bridesmaids, with producers and critics and all sorts of folks saying the movie could never succeed because it’s about women, and men can’t/shouldn’t be asked to enjoy things that feature women. Turns out, it’s the highest-grossing Judd Apatow movie. It’s sad that it takes something like a Word Cup game or great film to demonstrate to the world that men are actually capable of liking things that do not feature men as the primary subjects. Women are constantly asked to identify with male athletes and male characters, and I have a hard time believing that men can’t/won’t do the same when they’re not trying to fit into some kind of patriarchal prescription for manhood.

But if dude swilling beer on his couch doesn’t want to watch women’s basketball because he thinks he’s as good as, say, Brittney Griner, well, he kind of sucks at being a sports fan.

I didn’t create the human race, and I didn’t invent the male or female psyche either. I’m just calling it like I see it. I love women, and not just their physical appearance, either. I also love sports. But other than tennis, I really don’t enjoy women’s sports. It’s just a fact.

You also completely misunderstood my comment. I didn’t say that males couldn’t identify with females. I said the opposite. Males don’t enjoy female athletics UNLESS they identify with the players. When that doesn’t happen, there is an apathy for women’s sports because guys don’t find it exciting. Take it or leave it, like it or don’t, but that’s just the way it is. It’s not because we don’t like women, it’s just because we don’t find it exciting.

Men don’t ask you to like movies with horrible dialogue, terrible acting, but tons of explosions and guns. Why? Because those movies are MADE for men. Why must we like everything that is directed towards women? I like some romantic comedies because I can identify with the characters, and I can see humor in making fun of the dynamic and differences between women and men. But do I like sappy love stories? No. But why should I? I’m a man.

Getting back to sports – no, it’s not the miniskirts that attract me to women’s tennis, it’s tennis in general. I like the sport because it’s exciting to me. And while most men hit harder and run faster in tennis, that doesn’t preclude me from liking women’s tennis. Why? I’m not sure, but the closest thing I can gather is that I can like a play-style and the personality of a particular player. The other part is that the size of the court and the type of game that tennis is, it doesn’t change much from the men to the women, which is why you can have mixed doubles in tennis.

Basketball, Soccer, Football, whatever – it isn’t the case. How often do you see a woman jump from the free-throw line and throw down a dunk? How often do you see a woman that is 7 feet tall? How often do you see alley-oop dunks? Can a woman run a 4.3 in the 40?

Sports is about athletics first, entertainment second. If the athleticism doesn’t impress us, then it has to be entertaining.

I don’t ask my wife to like sports, but I appreciate it when she suffers through it to watch the game in order to be with me. My wife doesn’t ask me to like sappy romance movies, but she appreciates it when I tolerate it to enjoy some time with her. Perhaps you should stop worrying about why men don’t like things designed for women, and just appreciate it when men do things they don’t like to make you happy?

I hate to be the one to inform you of this after 6000 years of recorded human history, but MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT. Just because men don’t like something you like doesn’t mean we’re all chauvinistic jerks. This radio personality might be, but that doesn’t mean we all are.

Obviously men and women are different. I’m not arguing that. But here’s the deal: preferences for action vs. romance, sports vs. shopping, are all culturally constructed. Many women don’t like sports, and many men hate shopping, but that’s learned behavior.

You wrote: “Males don’t enjoy female athletics UNLESS they identify with the players. When that doesn’t happen, there is an apathy for women’s sports because guys don’t find it exciting. Take it or leave it, like it or don’t, but that’s just the way it is. It’s not because we don’t like women, it’s just because we don’t find it exciting.”

Your argument for not finding it exciting doesn’t hold water. You only want to watch the fastest, dunkingest people, with very limited exceptions? Then you should only watch professional sports, because college athletes are, on the whole, not as good as professional ones. But people don’t just watch professional sports. They also watch college sports. Why? Because the stories and games and competition are compelling, not because they are watching literally the best athletes in the world.

I think it’s reasonable to ask people to think more deeply than saying men don’t like women’s sports because they’re not exciting/they have trouble identifying with most women. You say men need to identify with the players to like the sport, but society says men shouldn’t have to identify with things women like or with women (unless they’re gay) because it’s emasculating. Dude stuff = awesome, lady stuff = lame. (For example: a straight girl who’s into traditionally masculine things like, say, Scotch or MLB, is seen as being cool, while a straight man who enjoys traditionally feminine things, like Grey’s Anatomy or fruity booze drinks is seen as being a wuss.)

Personally, I believe men can and do really dig women’s sports once they let go of the idea that they’re only Real Dudes doing Real Dude Things if they watch men’s sports. I also think it’s a little weird that this subject gets so many men riled up and anxious to prove how not sexist they are, and how down with women they are, except they find the prospect of women playing sports to be totally boring.

“But here’s the deal: preferences for action vs. romance, sports vs. shopping, are all culturally constructed. Many women don’t like sports, and many men hate shopping, but that’s learned behavior.”

Not a chance. Males and females are designed completely differently, since the beginning of recorded history. Males have always been aggressive, survival-based and physically oriented. Women have always been nurturing and less aggressive, more emotionally oriented. If you’re trying to say that this is a “cultural, learned” response, and you’re trying to change it by screaming at a guy who is an alleged chauvinist, then you’ve got quite the futile effort ahead of you. If this truly is a “learned” response, then you’re fighting several millenniums’ worth of “teaching”. Good luck with that.

“Your argument for not finding it exciting doesn’t hold water. You only want to watch the fastest, dunkingest people, with very limited exceptions? Then you should only watch professional sports, because college athletes are, on the whole, not as good as professional ones. But people don’t just watch professional sports. They also watch college sports. Why? Because the stories and games and competition are compelling, not because they are watching literally the best athletes in the world.”

My argument doesn’t just hold water, it’s completely proven by your example. College basketball ISN’T as entertaining as the NBA, from an athletic standpoint. But being an alumnus of a school, being from a certain area, rivalries, the NCAA one-and-done tournament – all those factors make it entertaining for men. But at the same time, MANY of those athletic elements that exist in the NBA are also present in the college game, which elevates it above women’s sports in the male mind.

I’m not getting riled up trying to defend myself as non-sexist. I’m pointing out that your definition of sexism is flat wrong. Sexism isn’t thinking women’s sports are boring. That’s just male preference. Hell, it’s just entertainment preference, for that matter. Sexism isn’t distinguishing the differences in preference based upon gender (women shop, men hunt). That’s just being realistic. Sexism is viewing or treating females in a dishonorable or disrespectful way simply because of their gender.

Further, I don’t know what this guy may have said in the past that was truly chauvinistic, but reading the article that you referred to – nowhere did he mention the attractiveness of the players as a reason for that game to be entertaining. He also said he hates soccer – not women’s soccer, but soccer. I suppose soccer fans should be offended because he doesn’t find their sport entertaining? THIS MAN IS A SOCCER HATER! STRING HIM UP!

Funny, but his reaction also followed the exact scenario I’ve been explaining – he saw something amazing to him (athletically), and the game provided entertainment (in the form of the suspense of the outcome, etc.). Isn’t that what I’ve been saying all along?

I’ll give you that there are a LOT of chauvinists in this world, and a LOT of them who work in sports media (maybe even the guy who wrote that article). But, c’mon, you are seriously reaching for a reason to complain here.

Oh my goodness, Ms. Grimes, get off of your soap-box, please. You are giving women a bad name. I am a 38 yr old woman, I can NOT agree with you at all. The fact that a guy doesn’t find women’s sports entertaining on most occasions, but when he does see something that peeks his interest he gives them a “bravo” does not make that man a pig. I love baseball, absolutely LOVE it, but when someone turns on a women’s softball game, it’s just *blah* to me, I guess that makes me a pig too.

I only slightly disagreed with your initial blog, but the comments you made to C-Q blatantly pointed out that you just have a dislike towards the male gender, and it seems that there is nothing that can be said or done to make you see them as a decent species. He was simply stating basic truths, but you don’t want the truth you want it all to be about man-bashing.

Anyhow, I couldn’t refrain from commenting, simply because you are such a feminist that I felt there needed to be an equalizing opinion by another female to slightly balance things.

C-Q I think that all of your points were VERY valid and you presented them in a respectful manner. I think that your arguments DO hold water

Wow. Thank you Jeanea, very much – I appreciate the sentiment. I had hoped that I didn’t come across in a bad way to women. I know that women have very valid concerns about male chauvinism (my wife’s workplace is one of the worst). As you pointed out, there needs to be a measure of balance with these kinds of topics, even if only so that the people who have major concerns can speak out without being viewed as extremist.

Jeanea – I am still looking for the part in my comments where I wrote “all men or pigs” or “I hate all people of the male gender,” or “men are an indecent species” or anything that could be interpreted as such, but I look forward to you finding that and pointing it out to me, at which point I will take back my statement and set my cats on fire or something.

I totally high-five dudes who dig women’s sports. If Richie Whitt had written, “Man that women’s World Cup game was the bomb, and this makes me want to watch more women’s sports!” I would have been like, well done Richie Whitt. But he didn’t say that, and neither did this CQ dude. They both said that women’s sports are mostly boring to them because women play them. Granted, CQ was a far more eloquent and reasoned than Richie, and didn’t have the added bonus of “If my boner’s not excited, I’m not watching women do a damned thing.”

I don’t really care if men don’t like women’s sports–just like I don’t care when women don’t like men’s sports, or when some people don’t like spaghetti, or when some people think the Beatles are a sucky band–what I have a problem with are blanket statements about women’s sports being boring with only very few exceptions, for reasons no one can seem to come up with beyond “men run faster than women.” (The exceptions, for the record, are almost always “when a hot lady is involved.”) If somebody literally only watches the best professional sports teams play championship games and says they don’t like women’s sports, then fine, I’ll buy that. But anyone who actually appreciates sports ought to be capable of appreciating competition at all levels. As CQ said, there are a lot of reasons to watch sports: your hometown team, your alma mater, your mom’s favorite team, you played them as a kid, you wanna see if Tiger Woods’ mistress is gonna show up at the 18th hole–all of these are good reasons to watch sports generally. I simply fail to understand people who say they won’t watch a women’s game because men run faster than women and their delicate sports palette can only handle the best of the best, because they’re watching sports for also a million other reasons that don’t have to do with the fact that Dirk Nowitzki is taller than most people.

Saying you don’t like something because women are doing it, and your reasoning is tied directly into the idea that women’s biology/femaleness makes them unexciting, is a patently sexist thing to say. Here’s the thing, though: there are a lot of reasons people might not dig women’s sports that are actually not sexist, but reflections of a sexist society: the athletes’ stories are under-covered in the media, so we don’t know Rabinoe the way we know LeBron. Women’s sports don’t have the promotion budgets that men’s sports do. Girls’ sports programs are under-funded and often only the wealthiest families can afford to train girls in club sports, etc, leading to a smaller pool of girls generally becoming excellent athletes. All of these things are more productive, interesting and valid than simply talking about how girls run slow so WAHHHH.

Andrea – do you enjoy watching the Special Olympics? I’m curious to know the reasons why you do or do not enjoy them. I’m guessing that since I don’t appreciate the Special Olympics because it isn’t entertaining to me, it must also mean that I’m a jerk who hates handicapped people – based on your line of reasoning.

I mean, let’s be honest, those people are athletes too. They’re just not as athletic as the average man OR woman. So, I guess we should all watch the Special Olympics with equal interest, otherwise we’re all simply a bunch of handicapped-hating neanderthals…right?

“If somebody literally only watches the best professional sports teams play championship games and says they don’t like women’s sports, then fine, I’ll buy that. But anyone who actually appreciates sports ought to be capable of appreciating competition at all levels.”

No doubt. But does that mean we have to watch it all the time, or be entertained by it? I don’t like watching women’s sports, but I will root for certain women’s teams. I’m very happy that women can compete in sports that they love, and when the situation merits it, I am fully behind it, regardless of how I feel about them athletically.

I don’t like watching the Special Olympics, but I’m happy for each and every one who gets to compete in those events and feel the thrill of participating in sports. Why? Because you develop a connection with people in those situations. But take that factor out of it, and it’s just not entertaining to see someone struggle to make it to the finish line because of their limitations.

Sports has those two components about it – athleticism and entertainment value. If someone isn’t doing something that we, as a whole, consider amazing, it isn’t going to be watchable unless there is something else behind it – an emotional connection, if you will. That’s not just women’s sports, that’s ENTERTAINMENT. That’s all sports.

Beyond that, your implication that our interest in female sports is SOLELY based on their attractiveness is just plain silly. Otherwise, the most popular sport in the world would be the Lingerie Football League (yeah, it’s a real league, look it up). There’s no doubt that men want to see “hot” women. But when it comes to sports, that’s not what we’re looking for. Men usually turn to magazines or Internet sites for that stuff, not sports.

You’re taking something that men naturally do well and enjoy, something that men invented, and turning us all into sexists because women don’t do it as well, and so we don’t watch you do it. This is the same line of thinking that puts men into the “we can’t win” category whenever we say that a woman is better at caring for children. You want to define yourself according to a man’s strengths, and when we don’t love every second of it, people like you get mad at us.

We might think it’s cool that you can enjoy and even do some of the things that we do, but we want you to be women. Just as you want us to be men. That’s how we’re built, that’s nature. That doesn’t mean that when we don’t really care all that much for your athletic ability, we’re suddenly sexist. Define yourself as a woman and be proud to be a woman, and stop worrying about comparing yourself to men in silly things like sports. There are LOTS of places to worry about gender inequality, and this is the LAST place you should be doing it.

I am a man and I don’t enjoy watching women’s sports. I don’t enjoy it because it isn’t played at a high enough level to keep me interested. I’m glad you mentioned college sports, because I can’t watch that, either, for the same reason. And high school sports and below- forget about it. Do you enjoy watching soccer games between 6 yr olds in which you’re not related to anyone on either team? If not, have you ever considered that maybe its because you just don’t like children? Of course not.

andrea, the great part about your writing is you dont ever say outright you hate men so you can always claim that, but anyone who has read more than one of your articles can that you have a general disdain toward men

I will happily concede that I have a strong dislike of patriarchal society and values, but I will direct you in fact to a piece I commissioned from Dan Solomon, who is a dude and a fantastic writer and says it better than I can: “Why Feminism Is Also Dude-Ism.” In fact, I am a feminist because I love dudes (and ladies and people generally) and think a more gender-equal world means more happiness for everyone. That’s why, when I write about the sports issue, I am careful to mention that I believe the idea that men can’t be asked to watch women’s sports is, in fact, detrimental to men. Men are capable of doing all kinds of awesome things, and watching women’s sports is one of them. Why should men be pigeonholed into gender-restrictive behavior, likes, dislikes, etc., based purely on their gender, any more than women should? It’s preposterous.

So…if a guy went out tonight, and he wanted to make himself “pretty” by painting his nails, putting on a little make up, maybe carried a purse to make sure he had everything he needed…then he went to a romantic movie and bawled his eyes out…you would date him, perhaps even marry him?

Your definition of gender-equality is “we should act and think and be alike”. Or, at the very least, we should “like the same things”. That’s gender-neutral, not gender-equal. Gender equal is treating individuals the same regardless of gender. It doesn’t mean liking everything they do with equal fervor. What you’re asking goes not against culture, but nature.

I need more information about how who I would marry has anything to do with gender equality. I mean sure, if a dude wants to wear makeup and carry a purse, rock on with your bad self, dude. Actually, the kind of guy who would be baller enough to do something like that in public and not really give a fuck what people thought about him sounds like a pretty good time.

Let me be clear: my idea of gender equality includes a world in which women’s sports aren’t written off because they’re played by women. And yes, I do believe that saying “women are not as [whatever] as men, therefore they are boring” is a patently sexist idea, because you are using one gender over another as the standard. You mentioned earlier that you felt I shouldn’t define myself in relation to men’s strengths–except that’s precisely what people do when they say women’s sports are boring because they’re not men’s sports.

I’m not asking people to like men’s and women’s endeavors in equal fervor and across the board. I’m asking people not to say women’s sports suck because women play them. Surely you recognize the difference.

Just because someone doesn’t like women’s sports doesn’t mean that they are saying that women as a whole are not equal. It’s just that they don’t hold women’s sports higher than men’s sports in their opinion. Whitt happens to be a sports writer that echoes the sentiments of most men out there. I enjoy listening to him on the radio, not because I agre with everything he says, but because he doesn’t hold back his feelings. He isn’t telling others to not watch women’s sports, he is merely detailing the reasons why he doesn’t like them. Personally, I don’t enjoy them either. There is a reason why an NBA game draws a full arena of 25-30 thousand people, and a WNBA game might get up to 8-10 thousand people, or when college programs start looking at cutting programs, women’s volleyball might be on the chopping block. The general public AS A WHOLE would rather watch, pay for, buy merchandise of, men’s sports. I’m not going to get into why because I’m sure every person has a different reason. But the money maker for most colleges is their football program. That’s why the coaches get paid more than professors. They make more money for the school. There is a reason why WNBA puts sponsors RIGHT ON THEIR JERSEYS. Because they can’t draw the revenue from paying fans to support the league. You can not like it as much as you want, but the fact is, men’s sports is more exciting than women’s sports. Just the way it is. And of course if men were to watch a women’s sport, they would want the athletes to be attractive. That goes for women as well. I have heard women comment on how football players look in their pants, and how ripped that British soccer player is, but it doesn’t make me think that they are out of line. It’s a double edge sword you are playing with, but you only want to sharpen one side. You are fighting for something that is already won. My boss is a woman and that doesn’t bother me. I cringe at sexist jokes, and don’t find them funny. Women are not held back in most avenues of the social experiment we call life in the USA, (there are still some places that need to be challenged) but the things that interest others shouldn’t be. Women still play sports, and they still have fans that really enjoy it. If Whitt was saying that women shouldn’t play sports because he doesn’t like it, that would be different, but he only says that HE doesn’t like it. And please tell me, who are you to dictate what others should or should not like. If anything, you are the driving force that drives people away from women’s sports, rather than give it a try and see if THEY CAN DECIDE IF THEY LIKE IT OR NOT. Give it up already.

“Let me be clear: my idea of gender equality includes a world in which women’s sports aren’t written off because they’re played by women.”

Women’s sports written off because they’re not as exciting to men, not because they contain women. See my Special Olympics example or Boblaw’s example of children’s sports.

“And yes, I do believe that saying “women are not as [whatever] as men, therefore they are boring” is a patently sexist idea, because you are using one gender over another as the standard.”

Then you’re over-generalizing and as guilty of stereotyping as Richie Whitt. It’s not like we’re saying your a lesser species, we’re saying you lack of ability to jump high isn’t as exciting to us when it comes to watching basketball.

“You mentioned earlier that you felt I shouldn’t define myself in relation to men’s strengths–except that’s precisely what people do when they say women’s sports are boring because they’re not men’s sports.”

Except that sports wasn’t invented around concepts of female strengths. It was built around the concept of physical capabilities, male strengths. Therefore, the standard is built by the existence of sports in general, not male perception. If you want women to be considered equal in sports, then convince the world to let them start competing along with men equally, and see how far you get with that.

“I’m not asking people to like men’s and women’s endeavors in equal fervor and across the board. I’m asking people not to say women’s sports suck because women play them. Surely you recognize the difference.”

Bullshit. You are asking for equality of opinion despite natural differences. No one here (especially not me) said that women’s sports suck, and neither did Richie Whitt. He just said he preferred male sports, and stated male athletic abilities as the reason. Had he not made the comment about looking good in shorts, nothing he said was sexually offensive to the reasonable person.

Men can be asked to watch women’s sports, just like we can be asked to watch “Steel Magnolias”. We’re just not going to enjoy either activity. We will, at times, act like we’re interested so we can make you happy, but most of us would rather shave our head with a cheese grater.

Out of all the “awesome” things man is capable of (creating fire, the wheel, etc.), for the life of me, I don’t know why watching women’s sports has to be lumped in the same category.

The reason most of us don’t enjoy watching women’s sports is women as a gender cannot jump as high, hit as hard, or run as fast as their male counterparts. Watching women’s sports, for the most part, is literally like watching a high school game.

I’ll go ahead and speak for all men when I say we don’t feel “pigeonholed”. There is no grown man on the planet that is scared the “macho police” are going to run in and revoke his mancard if a woman’s sport is on his television. No one is holding a gun to our head and telling us we can’t watch the WNBA. As a matter of fact, most of us gave it a shot and found it laughably unprofessional compared to what we’re used to watching.

Men are men, we like what we like, we’re chemically/physically different than you, and different things drive us. Most of us are unapoligetically this way. Perhaps it is biology. Perhaps it is millions of years conditioning…..but the sooner you learn to live with that, the sooner you’ll stop banging your head against the wall

Or maybe you’ll just continue to tell us we’re “stupid/lame/emotionless/lazy/whatever ” because we simply are men and identify with what we identify with?

I will fully admit that I don’t enjoy watching every women’s sport, but soccer is a major exception. A lot of the plays are as spectacular as in the men’s game, it’s actually a bit more physical, and there’s significantly less diving. I think Richie’s problem was that he both a) doesn’t like soccer that much anyway, and b) writes for an audience that represents, let’s just say, the less enlightened tendencies of my half of the species.

His first article of a few days ago was just kind of lazy and dismissive, especially considering how fantastic the event was that he was attempting to write about. The one today was just petty.

Ok Matt, I take offense to your statement that he writes for the less elightened tendencies of our species, No he writes for idiotic moronic listeners. he dumbs down his blog, uses it for his daily run sheet on the radio. Ask anyone in that comments section, he used to write thoughtful and insighful blogs, now he slaps some bullshit down on paper and turns it in as writing. We beg him to give us something good to read and we get 5 sentance blogs with you tube clips or photos

HA! When you are calling people who enjoy reading or listening to something that you don’t enjoy, or don’t agree with, idiotic or moronic……at least spell the words correctly. You wouldn’t want to look like one of us. Down the hall, to the right.

Huh. I own season tickets to football (a game I have never played as it is not taught to women), at a college (that I am not an alumna of), where I watch men play (which I am not) at a lower level than professional football.

But yaknow, MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT. In that female participation is devalued or invisible.

YES! Men and women are different. not in that female participation in men’s sports is devalued, but that the fact that most women simply can’t play the sport as well as men can. You show me a woman who can play the sport at the level of the men that she is going against, and I will back her 100%. There was even a goalie in NHL that was a woman for a short stint. The problem was, she was prone to injury because her frame couldn’t hold up. And if she expanded her frame, she couldn’t move as fast. It’s not that men are sexist because there are no women in football, it’s that, genetically, women can’t keep up with the games at those levels. Im not trying to be an ass, or anything, but nature is nature. There are high school girls who play football, but as the sports evolves at higher levels, so need for the athlete’s demands increases as well. There are sports where that doesn’t matter. Tennis, soccer, backgammon. But there is reason why the LPGA players play from a different set of tees. If you want to be TRULY equal, let’s let them play from the men’s tees against som PGA players. Or have them swim against themm men in the olympics. There are reasons why the different men’s and women’s divisions exist. The frame and build of a male athlete is bigger, faster, and stronger in most instances. Just the facts

I’m talking about the differences between male and female SPORTS FANS, not athletes.
The idea that men cannot identify with female athletes (except female sports fans somehow are able to identify with male athletes). Or that men can’t watch women because they aren’t THE BEST OF THE BEST of their sport (except college and high school sports are popular.) Or that men only watch nonprofessional sports if they are an alumnus (laughably, blatantly untrue).

YET SOMEHOW women like me who don’t play football or went to my local college are able to watch nonprofessional college football played at a lesser level than the NFL and enjoy it and root for it even tho it is played by men. And I’m not alone. There are a ton of women in that stadium.

But I’m glad you brought up athleticism because obviously that is not required for a sport to be popular. I’m from the midwest and hockey fans will follow their local hs teams, their college team of choice (go green), their AHL team, and the NHL. Why? Because they love the sport in all its varieties. We would mock people who would only be able to watch the NHL with its fast paced, violent style and couldn’t sit through a college hockey game because obviously those people weren’t real hockey fans. They wanted easy entertainment, not athleticism, not skill, not technique, and not technical ability.
And that’s what these men are who condone the male general inability to watch PROFESSIONAL women’s athletics based on a weak comparison to top professional male athletes – mentally lazy and poor sports fans. They can only watch the one version of their sport that least challenges their perceptions. They cannot see the subtlties and the unique differences because they are too fixated on the lack of bravado and machoism that is familiar and safe. That or equally valuing and recognizing female athletes make them feel uncomfortable.

Which reminds me of a hilarious conversation I had with a big linebacker sized man at the bar, obviously clinging to some long lost high school football glory, who told me, a marathon runner, that Title IX funding should be stripped because a man “won” the Boston Marathon (despite the fact that there are a huge range of different competitive levels in the Boston and men and women don’t compete against each other) so by default all men are superior athletes and women don’t deserve an equal chance at athletics (and all money should all go to football obvs). I then told him he should prove his gender’s superority through a footrace, right then and there. If men were so superiorly strong and football was the ultimate proof of male strength, and strength isn’t relative, he should be able to beat me handily in physical ability. He blanched in horror. I guess women win!

Found this site via shout out from Richie Witt as I was listening to 105.3 today. I guess that makes me a troll. Interesting site you have here. I don’t agree with your opinion on this one but you write well and your arguments are logical.

I don’t particularly like watching volleyball. The sport doesn’t do much for me. I’ve tried to watch it, but meh…just can’t get into it.

But that doesn’t mean that volleyball players are just terrible athletes, or that I’d like them more if they were sexier, or that there’s something inherently wrong with volleyball itself. It just doesn’t do much for me.

Now, since I’m just a guy with a website, that’s no big deal. But let’s say I was a sports columnist, and the the local college volleyball team was on an influential run in the NCAA playoffs. Should I write a column talking about how much volleyball sucks? No, I shouldn’t, because nobody cares whether I like volleyball or not. My job is to talk about what’s going on in sports. Now, maybe, if I really don’t have anything to say, I could ignore the volleyball team, and write about something else. But if I’m going to write about volleyball (or baseball, or hockey, or whatever), my job is to write about the sport, not my personal feelings about whether it’s my favorite sport.

Similarly, nobody’s putting a gun to your head and demanding you like women’s sports. But your personal dislike for women’s sports does not translate into women’s sports being worthless, just as my dislike of volleyball doesn’t mean it’s a terrible sport. There are an awful lot of us who do like women’s sports for precisely the same reason we like men’s sports. Indeed, I’ve bought more Minnesota Lynx tickets than Minnesota Timberwolves tickets in the past year, precisely because the Lynx put a competitive, interesting team on the floor. (And please note, most NBA games don’t draw “20-25 thousand” fans, given that there isn’t an NBA stadium that seats that many people; the Minnesota Timberwolves, my local men’s team, drew just over 10,000 last year, and their sister organization, the Minnesota Lynx, is drawing near 10,000.)

Finally, the men who watch women’s sports and think, “Well, I could do that.,” if you’re going to try to tell me you could send the ball Megan Rapinoe sent in the Brazil game, you’re simply lying — few men or women in the world could have made that pass, especially with that amount of pressure on. It’s like me thinking I could golf as well as Rory McIlroy because I’ve golfed before.

Well, if you would do a little bit of research before you say that there aren’t NBA teams that average over 20k in attendance, you would find that the Trail Blazers, Bulls, Mavericks, and Cavaliers all average over 20k a year, so if there isn’t a stadium that seats that, then they must let them walk the rafters. Also, the Timberwolves averaged 15,242 people while the Lynx averaged 8,127. Oh and the WNBA average is even less at 7,728. Let me know what other facts I have skewed so I can correct you.

The Lynx average for the current season is up, and they drew over 11,000 for their opener. The T-Wolves might be up around 15K on paper, but the organization gave away approximately 3500 tickets per night — true paid attendance was around 10,000, as was the number of fans that actually showed on a nightly basis. And the largest NBA stadium is the Palace at Auburn Hills, which seats just over 22,000; nobody’s drawing 25,000.

The “well I could do that” comment stood out to me too. If men do feel this way (I have no proof of such beyond the comment above) is this a reaction to their masculinity being threatened by a woman being vastly stronger and superior to them in physical ability? I took it as a way to mentally devalue female athletic accomplishments to negate out the cognitive dissonance. This happens often through questioning the femininity and hetero status of female athletes that blur into the boundary of what is considered male, but I’ve never heard it spelled out this way.

So what you are saying is that there IS a stadium that holds over 20k people? Oh I thought earlier you said that there wasn’t. And paid attendance is not attendance. I said attendance. If there are people that did not attend the NBA games, then how many didn’t attend the WNBA games? Im sure every person with a ticket didn’t show, so that fact is universal through both leagues. And the home opener raises the average, which is just over 8k. You can spin it how ever you want, but it stands that even with ,what you say, 5000 people not showing up for the NBA games, they still draw more. Which proves my point. The women’s equivalent to the men’s sport doesn’t draw the interst or the capital that can equate. Which is why they have to resort to ads on their chests. Much like soccer in the United States. You have to peddle brands to get the money needed to make the sport survive.

I don’t like women’s sports, almost universally. Not because of anything more than it doesn’t hold my attention. I love women…I even went so far as to marry one! And I have a daughter who I hope picks up and excells at the sport or other type of activity of her choosing. I will watch because it’s my daughter, not because watching female athletes is remotely entertaining. To me, it’s not. And frankly, there’s absolutely NOTHING wrong with having that opinion. I didn’t grow up in an era where women’s sports were even televised, unless it was an olympic year. So this guy, it’s a waste of my entertainment dollar and time. I’m sure they are all fabulous athletes and could run circles around me. But I still don’t care at all. And I’m in the VAST majority in thinking.

Okay, so it’s a little weird to be commenting on my own item here, but I feel like we have a lot of newbies to cultural criticism in the room who are inclined to essentialize gender and use that as an excuse for sustained assbaggery. For all the folks here claiming Dudes Are Just This One Way and Ladies Are Just This Other Way, forever and ever amen, consider this shining example of how cultural constructions of gender are made to seem “natural,” in the NYT, with regard to Anthony Weiner and the idea that all men are sex-crazed pigs, so what are you going to do about it probably nothing: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/opinion/17lipton.html. Fact is, what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman have changed/shifted/changed back/whatever significantly over hundreds, and even thousands, of years and across cultures. So to say that men can’t be changed from their natural state of whatever, and they’re just not going to like lady sports because that’s the way biology intended it, is demonstrably false.

In response to @C-Q – I always enjoy it when a man informs me what “female strengths” are. Here’s a feminist concept for you – how’s about we all decide on our own what our strengths and weaknesses are based on what they actually are, rather than ignoring the countless men and women who don’t fit into supposedly “male” or “female” characteristics?
Whatever your opinion of women’s sports, or men’s sports, or sports in general – I personally have a very high opinion of all three – I think we can all see the flawed logic in blanket generalizations like “men are aggressive” or “women are emotional,” and especially in the idea that if you are an aggressive woman or an emotional man (or even someone of either gender who is both of those) you are trying to be something you aren’t.
Generally speaking – Individual men may not like to watch women’s sports. That’s fine, I don’t like to watch either gender play hockey. But I don’t then dismiss hockey overall as something not worth watching, or see it as natural that only Canadians like hockey because they invented it.
I also think it’s particularly telling that even Ritchie Witt, when he actually sat down and watched a women’s soccer game as a match between equal athletes (rather than deciding it must not be worth it because men against men would be more entertaining) he found himself – dare I say it – entertained.
My major beef with most men who say they don’t watch women’s sports, or care about women’s sports (etcetcetc) is that usually a) they haven’t watched a women’s game at all b) if they have, they watch it without any effort to appreciate the different style of play and most of all c) their preference and experience somehow makes them feel empowered to dismiss the entire world of women’s athletics as not worth airtime. Because it’s only half the population, right? Why should there be any value in something men don’t want to watch? Although it is sports, so I guess there can’t possibly be any women watching anyway.

Alright … my final 2 cents on this … Guys, I apologize for the members of my gender who feel the need to classify you as sexist simply because you prefer watching men’s sporting events as opposed to watching women play. It doesn’t mean you only watch the women for their sex appeal. It simply means you don’t follow the sport or get “involved” in the game unless something happens to get you involved because you find it less entertaining. I’m with Richie Witt. Soccer bores me. I have no interest in it. Watching pretty much ANY form of women’s sporting events falls under the same category as soccer … I’m not really interested. But the need to label someone as sexist because they prefer watching 1 gender over the other when it comes to sports is casting a wide net and also indicating that you will use almost any excuse to call a man a pig.

I really do feel like the women who want any gender bias removed from EVERY subject are unaware that while we should all be respected equally, there ARE universal differences between man & woman. And when someone gets on a soapbox with the intent of brow-beating a single group (based on gender, race, religion, sexual preference, locality, etc…) with the feeling that they are to speak for the group (race, religion, sexual preference, locality, etc. …) which they represent it really bothers me. These women do NOT represent me or my opinions. What makes it worse is that as they sit on their soapbox speaking for their “group” it makes all of that group look bad. While I’ve been watching the comments as they came in, and to be honest I can’t remember a single comment from another female that I agree with, and while I don’t agree with EVERYTHING that some of the guys have said, I do agree with most of what they’ve said.

So ladies, just remember that when guys make generalized statements about women being cranky or bitchy …. this is why. It’s the brow-beating that you are relentless at giving them …. just sayin’

This has ALL been twisted and blown up way out of proportion. One guy posted an opinion about the fact that he doesn’t enjoy soccer, and that he also doesn’t really enjoy watching women’s sports in general, but that the game he watched Sunday caught & HELD his attention. Sports is all about aesthetics. It’s about what pleases the individual who’s watching the game. If they aren’t interested, they simply are not interested. Saying that you don’t enjoy women’s sports because the performance is slightly below that of their male counterparts is not sexist. While there are some women who can out-perform their mail counterpart, the majority can not. So you ladies looking for equality, strap on the pads & the jerseys and go to the tryouts I promise you, if a coach thinks you can help the team win because you are a better athlete than John Doe, that coach will hire you. Teams are motivated by winning not by keeping the girls out.

Alright … I’m done with this … you all have a good night =) … and just remember, don’t be so bitter … If you’re bitter, all you get in return is a sour face when someone gets a taste of your bitterness =) ….

Well, at least we know ONE circumspect woman hangs around here. Thank you, Jeanea, for being just an awesome human being. I would be thrilled to know you in real life. But please, there is no need to apologize. You see, we pigs are capable of distinguishing between the actions and words of one person without attributing false motives to the entire gender. No, you are truly a gem for attempting to understand men, rather than blindly condemn them.

Andrea – I hate to be the one to inform you, but your views are far more bigoted than anything Mr. Whitt had to say, and that includes his comments regarding “hot chicks in shorts”.

Rose – You’re right, how dare I personally invent sports around the concept of being fast and tall and strong. It’s all my fault, I admit. Females ARE better at those things than men frequently, and I’m just making sweeping generalizations. In fact, now that you mention it, I do remember that one time in history class where they said that all the women at one time were more aggressive, stronger, and faster, and that men were bearing the children. Oh, and in anatomy, I remember reading that the male body was once configured very differently, designed for nurturing children, and that women used to have strong frames with bigger muscles and fewer curves to bear the burdens of work. Man, I really should’ve paid more attention in class so that I wouldn’t generalize nature like that. Oh well, anything I don’t like sucks, and therefore the people involved in it must also suck.

Thank you, Andrea and Rose, for telling me what I REALLY meant by the things that I said. My goodness, where would us men be without you there to constantly translate our words into their true chauvinistic meanings?

I hate resorting to sarcasm and general jackassery to make a point, but oh well…I’m just a chauvinist jerk who hates women except when they’re smoking hot…what else do I know?

So in response to your post Andrea about a bunch of newbies around here, here we go. We may be new to here, but many of us know your writing from the DO days. So let me clear on thing up for everyone. Its okay for Andrea to generalize a whole gender (males) but its not ok for a man to come here and generalize the whole female gender. Ok peops, now that we have that understanding you can continue on commenting, One last thing, what do you think of Whitt’s retort column?

“Saying you don’t like something because women are doing it, and your reasoning is tied directly into the idea that women’s biology/femaleness makes them unexciting, is a patently sexist thing to say.”

Not only is that a gross generalization, it’s a false statement, a blatant misquote, is heavily influenced by YOUR gender bias, and also condemns all men as pigs simply because they don’t find women’s sports as exciting as men’s sports.

CQ, I almost think this is not even worth replying to, because you are so incredibly wrong, it’s almost silly to even try and suss this one out. That sentence is about behavior, not identity, so on premise it doesn’t fit. Also, it is a true statement: saying sexist things about women is sexist. I mean seriously. Just like, TRY or something, dude.

Furthermore, that quote is a response to something an individual said, identifying that individual behavior/belief as sexist. I mean, honestly. It has nothing to do with ALL MEN. Here is how I would have written that statement if I had intended to condemn all men as pigs:

“Men hate women’s sports and because of this, they’re pigs.”

But I didn’t do that, did I? I identified a sexist belief espoused by an individual or group of individuals (NOT ALL MEN), that belief being that women’s sports suck because (whatever reason), and said (wrote) out loud that that is a sexist statement and/or belief. If it makes people who believe this feel hurt or challenged because they like to believe they don’t have any sexist beliefs, I can’t help that. You don’t have to read HayLadies if you don’t want to read about how some things people think, that you might also agree with, are either kind of or completely sexist. Saying someone has a sexist belief is not the same as calling them a pig. It’s saying someone has a sexist belief.

Actually, Rooster, let me do your work for you. Here is an example of a statement that generalizes an entire gender, one you wrote yourself. it’s about men:

“Men are men, we like what we like, we’re chemically/physically different than you, and different things drive us. Most of us are unapoligetically this way. Perhaps it is biology. Perhaps it is millions of years conditioning…..but the sooner you learn to live with that, the sooner you’ll stop banging your head against the wall”

Here’s another example of a statement that generalizes an entire gender, this one from CQ:

“Men don’t ask you to like movies with horrible dialogue, terrible acting, but tons of explosions and guns. Why? Because those movies are MADE for men. Why must we like everything that is directed towards women? I like some romantic comedies because I can identify with the characters, and I can see humor in making fun of the dynamic and differences between women and men. But do I like sappy love stories? No. But why should I? I’m a man.”

And another one from CQ:

“Males don’t enjoy female athletics UNLESS they identify with the players. When that doesn’t happen, there is an apathy for women’s sports because guys don’t find it exciting. Take it or leave it, like it or don’t, but that’s just the way it is. It’s not because we don’t like women, it’s just because we don’t find it exciting.”

I don’t know where you and CQ did all your research interviewing every last man on earth and finding yourselves able to speak for them, but I am not the one making blanket statements about folks on here. Y’all are.

How about another one from CQ?

“Males and females are designed completely differently, since the beginning of recorded history. Males have always been aggressive, survival-based and physically oriented. Women have always been nurturing and less aggressive, more emotionally oriented. If you’re trying to say that this is a “cultural, learned” response, and you’re trying to change it by screaming at a guy who is an alleged chauvinist, then you’ve got quite the futile effort ahead of you. If this truly is a “learned” response, then you’re fighting several millenniums’ worth of “teaching”. Good luck with that.”

Here’s another quote from you where you make a statement about All Men and All Women based on the fact that you have talked to SOME women:

” And of course if men were to watch a women’s sport, they would want the athletes to be attractive. That goes for women as well. I have heard women comment on how football players look in their pants, and how ripped that British soccer player is, but it doesn’t make me think that they are out of line”

For the record, my argument is not against celebrating the hotness of athletes. Let’s do that all day long. But let’s not say women athletes are MORE or ONLY valuable to men when they are hot, shall we? Because that is sexist and I do think people who make those arguments are out of line. Those people include: Richie Whitt.

Now, here are some examples of me saying that gender is a social construct and that men and women are not all the same, either to each other or among themselves. Like this one, where I say that men can like all kinds of different things, including but not limited to, women’s sports. You’ll note that this is NOTABLY DIFFERENT from what you and CQ have said, which is that men generally hate women’s sports. How is it NOTABLY DIFFERENT? I don’t generalize about gender and you do. Here’s my quote:

“Personally, I believe men can and do really dig women’s sports once they let go of the idea that they’re only Real Dudes doing Real Dude Things if they watch men’s sports”

Here’s another one, where I talk about how men can like lots of different things and don’t all have to fit into one kind of masculinity:

“Here’s the deal: I don’t buy the idea that men are too stupid/lame/emotionless/lazy/whatever to be asked to identify with HALF THE HUMAN RACE. For example, there was a lot of hand-wringing pre-Bridesmaids, with producers and critics and all sorts of folks saying the movie could never succeed because it’s about women, and men can’t/shouldn’t be asked to enjoy things that feature women. Turns out, it’s the highest-grossing Judd Apatow movie. It’s sad that it takes something like a Word Cup game or great film to demonstrate to the world that men are actually capable of liking things that do not feature men as the primary subjects.”

In that quote, I write that men are actually really thoughtful, interesting people who aren’t one way or another, but many different ways, as is evidenced by their ability to like, again, ALL DIFFERENT KINDS OF SHIT. I’m not the one pigeon-holing men by saying they only like action movies and hate romance movies. That would be CQ, if you’ll remember.

Let me make this conclusion really clear for you: I have not once in these comments, and I would wager not ever in the entirety of Hay Ladies, ever made a blanket statement about either men or women being/doing/liking one way or one thing, or all being the same. If I have, it would have been in the obvious context of a joke about how that belief is bullshit. Why? BECAUSE I DON’T THINK ALL MEN ARE ONE WAY AND ALL WOMEN ARE ANOTHER WAY BECAUSE I AM A FUCKING FEMINIST.

Andrea, you do a LOVELY job of misconstruing quotes and adding your own interpretation, then attributing false motives to people.

My quote: “Men don’t ask you to like movies with horrible dialogue, terrible acting, but tons of explosions and guns. Why? Because those movies are MADE for men. Why must we like everything that is directed towards women? I like some romantic comedies because I can identify with the characters, and I can see humor in making fun of the dynamic and differences between women and men. But do I like sappy love stories? No. But why should I? I’m a man.”

Please identify any part of that statement that is untrue, and point out where I identified women as INFERIOR because they have different tastes than men.

My quote: “Males don’t enjoy female athletics UNLESS they identify with the players. When that doesn’t happen, there is an apathy for women’s sports because guys don’t find it exciting. Take it or leave it, like it or don’t, but that’s just the way it is. It’s not because we don’t like women, it’s just because we don’t find it exciting.”

Did I say ALL males? No, I said “males”. It might be a generalization, but is it untrue? Did I say that women were INFERIOR as a gender because of it. Hell, to the fucking no.

YOUR quote: “I don’t know where you and CQ did all your research interviewing every last man on earth and finding yourselves able to speak for them, but I am not the one making blanket statements about folks on here. Y’all are.”

I’ll pull one of your sad little tricks here – where did I say that every last man on earth was interviewed? Please point that out to me. Another great example of twisting words.

My quote: “Males and females are designed completely differently, since the beginning of recorded history. Males have always been aggressive, survival-based and physically oriented. Women have always been nurturing and less aggressive, more emotionally oriented. If you’re trying to say that this is a “cultural, learned” response, and you’re trying to change it by screaming at a guy who is an alleged chauvinist, then you’ve got quite the futile effort ahead of you. If this truly is a “learned” response, then you’re fighting several millenniums’ worth of “teaching”. Good luck with that.”

Here you conveniently ignore that wonderful part of human communication called “context”. You infer that I said that ALL men, everywhere, all the time, are always more aggressive, survival-based, and physically oriented. You’re smoking crack if you think that’s what I was saying. Note the previous sentence, which places that comment in its proper context. In history, at all points in history, men as a gender are those things more so than women. Has every man on earth in the history of the earth always been stronger and faster than every woman on the earth in the history of the earth? No, but I didn’t fucking say that – YOU put those words into my mouth, not me.

Further, gender is NOT a social construct, you want to know why? Because gender is a PHYSICAL construct. Basic human physiology predisposes genders to having different physical, and even mental/emotional, traits to maintain the survival and perpetuation of the species. Society can mold certain BEHAVIORS to maintain reasonable interactions between the genders (which is clearly NOT on display by Ms. Grimes here), but society CANNOT change physiology.

If you want men to think like women, if you want the majority of men to learn to like womanly things, and if you want women to compete on an equal physical plane with men, then you need to start working at the DNA-level, not the social level. That’s just scientific fact. No where does science (nor do I) say that men are more important than women or vice-versa. Both are equally crucial to the survival of the human race. But we are physically and mentally different. If you want to argue against that, and if you think you can change that, then you are a fool.

YOUR quote: “For the record, my argument is not against celebrating the hotness of athletes. Let’s do that all day long. But let’s not say women athletes are MORE or ONLY valuable to men when they are hot, shall we? Because that is sexist and I do think people who make those arguments are out of line. Those people include: Richie Whitt.”

That would be absolutely exquisite…if you had held yourself to that argument. Instead, you went on to infer that men who think women’s sports are boring because they just aren’t as athletic (scientific fact) are all sexist. You’re wrong if you think I said anything of that sort, and you’re a hypocrite for casting all men under the category of pigs for having the audacity to think that they have some physical traits that women don’t possess.

YOUR quote: “Here’s the deal: I don’t buy the idea that men are too stupid/lame/emotionless/lazy/whatever to be asked to identify with HALF THE HUMAN RACE.”

Wait, so what you’re saying is that if we don’t like women’s sports, we’re “stupid/lame/emotionless/lazy/whatever”. Sound familiar? That’s me twisting YOUR words exactly as you twist mine.

“I’m not the one pigeon-holing men by saying they only like action movies and hate romance movies. That would be CQ, if you’ll remember.”

Yet another example of you misconstruing a quote of mine. I didn’t say they ONLY like action movies and hate romance movies…no YOU added the word “ONLY”. If you think that more men like romance movies than action movies, you are again a fool. There is nothing untrue or insulting about that comment, until YOUR words are added to them.

Clearly, you view most men as chauvinist pigs. We get that, but don’t twist my words to serve your sad little semi-feminist agenda. Nothing I said was insulting to men or women. I might generalize on occasion, but certain I don’t do so with the intent of insulting anyone, unlike you. I only provided common, understandable examples to illustrate a factual point. It is YOU that translates that into something insulting.

This is truly sad. I had no intention of coming to your blog and argue your point about Richie Whitt. I was directed here by a tweet from Sophia Dembling, an intelligent woman that I fully respect. I agreed with your King Bucks article in which you stated that what Danny Balis said was wrong. In general, I agree that the “hot chicks in shorts” reference by Mr. Whitt is a very sexist expression. I WAS with you completely on that statement.

But, YOU convinced me otherwise! Instead, I discovered that you thinly mask a hatred for men under the false pretense of being a feminist. You hate all things male – the way we think, the way we act, the way we are. That’s not feminism, that’s gender-hate. You are SO much more of a bigot than any man on here, and far more so than Mr. Whitt. Just because we don’t look at you the way that we look at ourselves (because WE ARE DIFFERENT), doesn’t mean we’re all evil pigs. You need to gain some SERIOUS perspective, and learn to stop putting chauvinist interpretations into every word that a man utters. You, Andrea, are the queen of disinformation.

– “Please identify any part of that statement that is untrue, and point out where I identified women as INFERIOR because they have different tastes than men.”

Easy: the part where you said men like action movies and women like romance movies. EXCEPT WAIT you admitted to liking some romance movies. So which is it, dude? Do men like only action movies or what? It’s almost as if you’re saying men are nuanced people who like all kinds of shit. Just like what I’m saying, so why in the world are you trying to challenge me on this?

– “But do I like sappy love stories? No. But why should I? I’m a man.” That’s where you call women inferior. You are a man, therefore you don’t like “sappy” (negative term) romance stories. Men = superior because they don’t like sappy love stories. Granted, you acknowledge that action movies often have shitty dialogue, etc., but you don’t say women are awesome for not liking them, you actually imply that men are the essentialized arbiters of taste, in that you, because “I’m a man” get to say what is good/bad based on your manhood. Bad includes “sappy” love stories, which are made for women. In fact, a lot of women really like action movies. How do I know? Because action movies are hugely successful and men and women both buy tickets to see them, and some of them, in my experience, enjoy them together. Did I just blow your mind? I hope so.

-“My quote: “Males don’t enjoy female athletics UNLESS they identify with the players. When that doesn’t happen, there is an apathy for women’s sports because guys don’t find it exciting. Take it or leave it, like it or don’t, but that’s just the way it is. It’s not because we don’t like women, it’s just because we don’t find it exciting.”

Did I say ALL males? No, I said “males”. It might be a generalization, but is it untrue? Did I say that women were INFERIOR as a gender because of it. Hell, to the fucking no.”

Really dude? For fuck’s sake. If you say “males” and you mean it to be a generalization, you do, in essence, say “all males.” Also, because generalizations are false, yes it is untrue. The guys commenting on this thread who dig women’s sports pretty obviously demonstrate that men like women’s sports for a variety of reasons, which yes, probably include identifying with the players, among others. The part where you said women were inferior is this: “it’s just because we don’t find it exciting.” Apart from the ridiculous idea that you think you speak for men generally (“we”), the obvious and clear implication is that women’s sports are boring. Boring = “don’t find it exciting.” Why? Well, you just don’t find women’s sports exciting! It’s not that women’s sports are inferior, they’re just not exciting. Men’s sports on the other hand, ARE exciting. So, if men’s sports are exciting, and women’s sports are not exciting, you’re casting women’s sports as inferior. Since you can’t come up with a good reason for women’s sports to be boring other than the fact that they’re not men’s sports, you are saying women are inferior when it comes to making sports exciting.

“YOUR quote: “I don’t know where you and CQ did all your research interviewing every last man on earth and finding yourselves able to speak for them, but I am not the one making blanket statements about folks on here. Y’all are.”

I’ll pull one of your sad little tricks here – where did I say that every last man on earth was interviewed? Please point that out to me. Another great example of twisting words.”

-See above where you said “guys don’t find it exciting” and “males don’t enjoy female athletics…” and “we don’t find it exciting.” In all of these places, you are speaking for men, which to me implies that you must have talked to them all. Did you not? Then you need to say “Some men …” or “Men WHO don’t enjoy female athletics.” Easy-peasy!

– “Here you conveniently ignore that wonderful part of human communication called “context”. You infer that I said that ALL men, everywhere, all the time, are always more aggressive, survival-based, and physically oriented. You’re smoking crack if you think that’s what I was saying. Note the previous sentence, which places that comment in its proper context. In history, at all points in history, men as a gender are those things more so than women. Has every man on earth in the history of the earth always been stronger and faster than every woman on the earth in the history of the earth? No, but I didn’t fucking say that – YOU put those words into my mouth, not me.”

You wrote that “Males have always been aggressive, survival-based and physically oriented. Women have always been nurturing and less aggressive, more emotionally oriented.” Golly, but I sure do read that as you saying that all men, everywhere, all the time, are always more aggressive, survival-based and physically oriented because you wrote that “Males have always been aggressive, survival-based and physically oriented.” If you had meant to say “It’s my experience that modern men are more aggressive, survival-based and physically oriented,” maybe you should have written that.

– “If you want men to think like women, if you want the majority of men to learn to like womanly things, and if you want women to compete on an equal physical plane with men, then you need to start working at the DNA-level, not the social level. That’s just scientific fact. No where does science (nor do I) say that men are more important than women or vice-versa. Both are equally crucial to the survival of the human race. But we are physically and mentally different. If you want to argue against that, and if you think you can change that, then you are a fool.”

Again, because sex and gender are different things (reminder: sex = biology, gender = social construct), there’s no such thing as an inherently “womanly” or “manly” things. There are things construed as masculine and feminine according to cultural norms. I agree men and women are physically and mentally different. However, I think the way physical and mental differences manifest has more to do with cultured learning than biology. The fact that different cultures and different peoples across time have different ideas about what it means to be man and woman (and in some cases, even biologically male or female) illustrates this very clearly.

I hope you stick around to read HayLadies, because I think you’ll find that criticizing sexist behavior and beliefs does not amount to man-hating. Again, I challenge you (or anyone) to scour HayLadies for any instance where I implied that men as a gender were horrible, or stupid, or “evil pigs.” You simply won’t find it. Not anywhere. Full stop. I don’t “hate all things male.” It’s a common back-up argument, however, when people have nowhere else to go, to say that a feminist who is spitting truth about the fucked up nature of gender relations in this world, just hates men. In fact, this kind of thing is so common, there’s a Feminism 101 entry about it:

Take-home quote: “But we know that not all men are pits of misogyny, so if you aren’t acting out misogyny, then it’s not about you. We also know that men who sometimes fall into minor unthinking habits of misogyny are not comparable to men who are violent and irredeemable misogynists. It’s understandable how sometimes criticisms of misogynists come across as generalisations about all men, when read by someone who isn’t used to the jargon shorthand and feminist perspectives. Time to lurk and learn.”

Please, CQ, lurk and learn. I’m deucing out. Thanks for a badass discussion, tons of hits, and an opportunity to talk up lady sports.

Andrea – Well, sure it’s easy. Everything is easy to distort. All you need is the will. It doesn’t even take any intelligence, which is demonstrated consistently in your reply.

Guess what, gender is PRIMARILY a language construct. I suppose we should apply this gender discussion in terms of language as well, then. Oh no! Now I’m being offensive to the feminine words of a language. God, how could I be such a pig?!?!

More misrepresentation, more flat out lies. Saying that I’m a man and that MOST (apparently I have to EXPLICITLY use the word MOST, because you can’t or won’t comprehend implied terms based on context) men don’t like sappy romance movies isn’t an insult to women. If you think it is, that’s on YOU, not me, because I never said it was, nor did I imply it.

YOUR quote: “Really dude? For fuck’s sake. If you say “males” and you mean it to be a generalization, you do, in essence, say “all males.””

Nope. See “http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/general”. Define the context, THEN define the term. Just a little middle-school reminder for you on how to interpret basic English composition.

YOUR quote: “Also, because generalizations are false, yes it is untrue.”

Wrong again. If you ONLY refer to generalizations in the sense that they are always all-inclusive, then sure, they’re often false. But that view is short-sighted and stupid. Generalizations also mean “MOST”, as well as “ALL”. If you had been reading or paying attention, you would have realized that. But you were too busy calling us all sexist jerks.

Actually, the rest of your entire argument misinterprets the word general, and so is completely off base. YOUR quote: “Golly, but I sure do read that as you saying that all men, everywhere, all the time…”

Good for you. Now go back and put it into context and define it correctly. See English Comprehension 101 above.

YOUR quote: “Again, because sex and gender are different things (reminder: sex = biology, gender = social construct), there’s no such thing as an inherently “womanly” or “manly” things. There are things construed as masculine and feminine according to cultural norms.”

I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t realize that males as a sex could be confused with females as a gender. Now you’re just inventing semantics to twist an argument. Either way, I clearly pointed out the focus and intent of that statement – that physically and mentally males and females are different. None of what I said changes or becomes untrue with your modified meaning of the word “gender”. It’s just something that you use to try and discredit my valid argument. Note that gender can mean a myriad of different things. However, if you use that little thing called context, you can properly define the intended meaning…something you either can’t do, or more likely refuse to do in order to make a flawed point.

YOUR quote: “I hope you stick around to read HayLadies, because I think you’ll find that criticizing sexist behavior and beliefs does not amount to man-hating.”

Ah, and you top it all off with a predictable condescending remark in the hopes that you’ll come across as “the better person”. No thank you. I don’t need to stick around your site, and I certainly don’t intend to now. You might think you can “pigeonhole” me as a sexist, but I’m pretty sure that I don’t need a lesson in sexism.

Do you want to know what sexism is? Sexism is my wife going to work every day and hearing comments from the other males about her butt or some other female feature. Sexism is her management treating her differently (and not in a good way) because she is a beautiful woman in an industrial-style environment. Sexism is being inundated with jokes about male and female sexual organs in the break room, frequently directed at her.

For what it’s worth, my wife is a wonderful and independent woman. She knows that physically she is not capable of doing the same work as the men at her place of work, but that doesn’t maker her feel inferior, an nor should it. She laughs at this pathetic insinuation that a guy is sexist because he thinks females are less physical and therefore not as fun to watch playing sports. She doesn’t care, because it doesn’t matter. It’s a stupid thing to criticize about men, because there are FAR worse things that men do that she could legitimately criticize.

It’s truly a tragedy that you choose to attribute legitimate entertainment preference, and the legitimate reason behind it, as a means to define someone as sexist. You’re not interesting, you’re not enlightening. You’re pathetic.

I was want to weigh in and say that maybe comparing women athletes to special olympiasts is not a good way to win an argument. At all. There are a lot of people in these comments making sports fans look reeaaallly really bad.

Nowhere did I say that women were like Special Olympians. You’re taking the illustration I provided out of context and attributing a false meaning. Please make sure you understand something before you comment…you’re making us all look bad.

I just want to commend you, because when trying to persuade or influence the opinion of others into believing that you have these things all figured out and are 100% correct & justified in the comments that you’ve made, it is always best to punctuate a debate with F-bombs & other obscenities. Because the ability to work said f-bombs into a sentence shows a highly evolved mind and only drives home the point that you are intellectually superior.

@C-Q: It’s not terribly important, but for the record, several modern sports have their roots with people who didn’t record their history – we don’t know who or what gender did the inventing.
If you want to make the point that, biologically speaking, men’s bodies build more muscle mass more quickly than women’s bodies, I won’t dispute you because that’s true. I’m actually not asking you to think women are physically as strong as men. Or even to like women’s sports.
I’m asking you to put a few minutes’ effort into examining your statements. It’s patently ridiculous to say, as you did in a nutshell, that “men are aggressive, women are emotional, so men like and invented sports and women like shopping and sappy romances.”
First off, there are plenty of cultures – like the North American Indians who arguably invented lacrosse – where the basic mode of operating was to allowed individuals to use the strengths they had wherever they could best serve the group because that gave the whole group the best shot at surviving. There are others where your examples hold some water, because yes, the men were hunters and the women were not.
However, I fail to see where either the biological or limited historical truths logically translate into all modern women being emotional nurturers who have to be forced into watching sports. I also fail to see where it means all men are only interested in explosions and men’s sports.
Let me be perfectly clear here. I do not care if you personally like women’s sports and that fact on its own isn’t where I see problems in what you’ve said. I do care that the reasons you gave for not liking women’s sports pigeonhole all women (and all men for that matter) into definitions that – “recorded history” aside – just plain aren’t accurate.

@Jeanea: I do appreciate you pointing out that not all women think the same on these issues. I hope you won’t take offense if I suggest that it may be as simple a disagreement as that you are one kind of woman and I am another. I don’t think either is a better way to be female, but I do think each of us is entitled to be whatever kind of woman she wants, something that I don’t see a lot of room for in the opinions of some of the commenters on this site. Frankly, that includes your comments when you apologize on behalf of an entire gender, implying that Andrea and I aren’t “real” women like yourself. I hope I am interpreting your words too harshly, and if I am, please tell me so.

Rose – “It’s not terribly important, but for the record, several modern sports have their roots with people who didn’t record their history – we don’t know who or what gender did the inventing.”

“It’s patently ridiculous to say, as you did in a nutshell, that “men are aggressive, women are emotional, so men like and invented sports and women like shopping and sappy romances.”

True, but I also didn’t say that men invented sports. I said that sports was invented (without specifying which gender did so) around male strengths – those strengths being inherently physical in nature. Regardless, if you knew that first statement was pointless, why did you feel the need to add it?

I understand that you think generalizing is ridiculous and sexist. But you are wrong. What’s sad is that you take issue with Mr. Whitt’s comments about “jump higher, run faster, hit harder”, and you do everything you can to say that he’s a sexist because of those comments. BUT, these words, from your own fingers, mean the EXACT SAME THING:

“If you want to make the point that, biologically speaking, men’s bodies build more muscle mass more quickly than women’s bodies, I won’t dispute you because that’s true. I’m actually not asking you to think women are physically as strong as men.”

There are multiple definitions, but the context in which the word is used is usually the clue to the meaning. In the case of my statements, this is the following definition that should be used:

2. of, pertaining to, or true of such persons or things in the main, with possible exceptions; common to most; prevalent; usual: example: the general mood of the people.

or, perhaps the phrase “in general”, which is defined as follows;

2. as a rule; usually: example: In general, the bus is here by 9 a.m.

I would hope that you could derive the intention of my “in general” statements by viewing them in context. After all, these are remedial English concepts taught in middle schools across the country. And nothing I said was untrue or insulting in nature. However, when emotions are involved, people tend to take the most offensive meaning and falsely apply it to the target in an effort to discredit the target.

Intentional or unintentional, that’s CLEARLY what has happened here with Rose and Andrea. Given Andrea’s combative style and general disregard for anything written here with pro-male intent, I’m going to guess it’s more intentional on her part. Rose seems to merely be “going with the flow” and unintentionally did so.

Regardless, it’s that lack of ability, or lack of will, to understand a person’s intent that pushes these arguments into the realm of extremism. When you, Andrea, start accusing everyone of being a sexist and boldly misrepresent what someone has said, you’re only hurting your cause, not helping it.

In closing, I’m going to organize a sports event with a bunch of old, fat, out of shape guys. If you women don’t come and are not thoroughly entertained, I’m going to be seriously offended. You sexist pigs.

OR maybe women’s sports are just less entertaining to some people than men’s sports. Not because of who they are being played by, but because different people are entertained by different things. I love football. I hate golf. It has nothing to do with whether or not there are men or women playing, but the game and how it is generally played. That being said, I can see where Richie is coming from. I don’t usually watch competitive swimming, but if I saw some hardcore, gripping competition, I might take a second look. To me, that’s all he was saying, regardless of how you choose to take it. It wasn’t a personal attack, rather an expression of personal opinion, something that everyone is entitled to. If you try to take away his right to say what’s on his mind, just because you don’t agree, you are no better than the “sexist pigs” you preach against.

All this seems to me to be quite ridiculous. I watch sports that I like and I watch the most proficient athletes in that sport.
My favourite sport is football (soccer to americans) and I pay to watch my team play, they are all men because in football women physically cannot really compete and are playing at a much lower standard. If there was a freak woman (I don’t mean that in a derogatory way) who was good enough to get into my team then I would be in favour of her being selected.
That’s it.

hay ladies!

This is a blog about sex, gender and feminism in Texas. It was borne of love for righteous internet activism, Twitter hashtags and beer. And whiskey. And cats. It is mainly written and edited by Austin journalist and anthropologist Andrea Grimes because she loves to put off real-life responsibilities in favor of blogging. Fellow contributors include graduate students, journalists and corporate shills writing under assumed names. We are always looking for more voices.

If you're a Texan interested in writing with us, please e-mail Andrea at (her first name dot her last name) at gmail.com.

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